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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

like some of you probably know i have been doing a few larger scaled commissions, and the bulk of it comes from Den of Angels (DoA), a ball-jointed doll forum. if you're a member and have at least 40 posts, you can view my marketplace and commission threads:

the ever popular macarons. i honestly honestly HONESTLY considered never ever EVER making these again. not only are they kind of hellish to make in larger scales (i don't use molds), the mixing of the colours are TORTURE on my wrists/hands. but beggars can't be choosers, and i really do need the $. so i guess i'll have to suck it up and keep making these for as long as people want 'em. =3=

the ones on top are for my customer. my first attempt at this commission is pictured below. ok, so why did i torture myself twice? or, 12 times? because after making the first batch, i realised that it was slightly blockish, and i wasn't quite satisfied with the colours. my customer requested the fillings to be lighter coloured, almost close to white, but can you see the fillings for the 4 lighter colours look...well, WHITE! GAH!

i couldn't. i just couldn't let it go. i thought, heck. i'll sleep on it and let my customer decide if she likes it. BUT I COULDN'T LET IT GO. AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!! so i made another batch. btw. each batch took me almost 4 hrs to complete. no, i wasn't multi-tasking or anything, i just REALLY DO WORK THAT SLOWLY. i think cos i had to mix up the colours, condition the clay, and GET THE FRIGGING @#$)*@#&$*#& DUST out of the clay AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, shape, bake, cool, mix up filling colours, rebake, cool etc....

maybe i should turn the room into a clean room, like those in silicone wafer factories or summat XD might be better for my allergies too HA!

aaand, of course there will always be waste clay. this batch of sprinkles i made from the first 'failed' batch of macarons. haven't yet rolled out the rest of the oddly coloured clay. thought of making jellybeans, but i really should rest my hands. they ache to the point of numbness now, which is something new.

what else has been happening. hrm. well you can go to my flickr and view some pics of some beautiful dolls. had an outing last saturday, 'twas great fun, which is driving me to try and work harder on earning $ so i can get my own.

i have found myself tiring out increasingly easily these past weeks. the thirst simply cannot be slaked (literal thirst) and the tests tomorrow .....well, i get the feeling the results aren't gonna be good. but i guess being sickly since childhood does somewhat numb one into a "ah well" or "ARRGHGHG I HATE THE WORLD" state. right now i think i'm smack in the middle of both. but i have more stuff i'm working on (personal mini projects) and am trying hard to get out of a 'one-trick pony' etsy-store-limbo.

oh and btw, just a reminder, the blog is now hosted on http://snowfern-clover.blogspot.com . ok. time for bed.

Monday, March 22, 2010

had some spare 'strawberry jam' leftover from a previous commission, so i decided to finish it up by piping it onto some cookies. the smaller ones on the rim of this plate are approx 4mm wide, so you can imagine how insanely fine the piping is -_-" i did this mostly at night, and my eyesight isn't that great then (maybe due to astigmatism, or just poor lighting), so i hadn't noticed the messy spots :( bah! i can probably scrape them off but that's a task for another time. preferably in the morn XD

the 'choco' ones were sort of an afterthought. again, leftover 'frosting' from my donut commissions. they were frosted a little differently, i'm playing around wtih the techniques, i think i prefer the 'flatter' effect.

i hate taking pics at night.

the size of the stars don't seem to match up with their heart and flower counterparts, grr.

and....another one of those julia usher inspired cookies :) i might wind up making mini 'cake' versions. am waiting for my order of microbeads to arrive...i hope to get them within the week!

on a more personal note, i've been really moody lately, and not very motivated to play with clay. i made some cupcakes and cookies which i haven't taken pics of, they're to be used concurrently with these cookies for a setting i have planned, just need to get to work on the setting itself first. having caught the flu last week, and now with a new complication, i might have to go for an earlier-than-scheduled checkup, and that always puts me in a foul mood.

Monday, March 15, 2010

air dry clay swan cream puffs in 1:3 scale, a customer request. i made these slightly more 'cooked' looking this time, as i felt the first experimental ones were too anaemic looking XD haven't yet informed my customer, i hope she likes these.......

so of course i had to make more in 1:12. they are also darker than the last attempt, i much prefer this colour. the cream i applied differently, they're not quite uniform but i have found that i much prefer it this way. it's more interesting to look at, more 'realistic' since i highly doubt in real life, swan cream puffs are made perfectly uniform, and much more fun to make. i don't have to fret over whether it's all 'perfect'. it's less stressful this way too! :P

and i've got mail!!!! woohoo! i bid for some items off evilbay, and these arrived today! the office lady re-ment sets! i didn't want the whole series, the only item i REALLY REALLY REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY wanted for the longest time...was that pink suitcase. so that little coffee tumbler was really appealing too. and that in-out organizer tray. and those curlers. but i digress. I FINALLY GOT IT YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i originally did not want to include Yotsuba in the setup....but i don't have a suitably sized doll nor furniture to play out the scene. it then became somewhat as if Yotsuba were playing dressup. and since i can't dress her up (technically i couldn't cos i couldn't undress her ROFL) she has to do 'pretend play'. can't do the whole "let's help momma pack" scene either since in the manga, she only has a dad. far as i've read anyway. shoot i wanna go finish reading it but curse this short attention span. where was i?

oh yes. so there she is, packing the essentials. her nightmare-before-christmas Zero purse, her eye (ok face) mask so she can sleep better (the nightlight irritates her yet she has to have it on) and her bunny to hug to sleep!

i wish i had more exciting and new items to show ya. the closest i've got are the curtains. you can view the pics i took just after i completed them on my flickr :)

Friday, March 12, 2010

look at my miserably painted sauce dishes XD ok the ones on the left aren't -that- bad. but the pink ones are....*shock shock horror* XD XD XD the paint clumped up and i got lazy, so i left it as such. i just wanted to see how it'd look with the colour scheme. i think i much prefer it plain white, or gold trimmed.

i recently listed some new colour schemes, and they seem to be rather popular ;) could barely catch up with making these, wrists and fingers are sore now XD

what else have i been up to? hrmm. nought much. i'm supposed to work on a few requests, but as i've packed my stuff, i can't seem to figure out how to 'work' in this new space. right now i don't have a place to put the pasta machine, and that's bothering me a little T_T but i guess i'll finish up some requests tomorrow.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

So. i was nearly late for a get-together cos i was busy going blind and developing RSI on my right wrist from putting the microbeads on them. in case you're wondering, that's not a huge dime, those grid lines represent 1mm squares. which means the microbeads are barely 1mm wide.

Nyann and i came across a cookbook whilst out shopping last week, and she went on to find the website (i'd forgotten the name by the time i got home, frankly i don't think i even remembered to look for the author's name). the bug would not leave my brain and i finally got some time to make these. to see the original beauuutiful cookies, you can view Julia Usher's site here:http://www.juliausher.com/

it's probably clear to some that these are Nyann's, Asuka's and my take on the swan cream puff XD we had taken this project on as a challenge, and also to see how differently we could do the same item.

even their BUTTS look different! LMAO!

yea. mine are the anaemic looking ones XD i used ADC for this challenge, and was not comfortable nor confident of colouring the puffs. but that's changed somewhat, my new puffs will be slightly more 'cooked' looking ahahaha.

i'm happy to see that my own style is beginning to emerge. i think. ;P

Nyann recently got her 1:4 ball-jointed doll! this is Julia...isn't she pretty? behind her is Cindy H's Asya ^ ^ i borrowed Julia's hand to see how the swan puff worked out size-wise, i think it's pretty good at this size. would make for a small 1:3 though. but that's alright too, foods come in various sizes anyway :D

Asuka's waiting for hers, so meanwhile, Kiki is keeping her doll's hat warm. XDa closer look at Asya! that robot pendant is making me go NGHGHGHGHHGHGHG inside AUGHH!!! it has moveable joints! yea i know, i tend to fixate over details rather than the dolls themselves XD

'twas a fun meet! had lots of laughs and we were pretty noisy (as always, should have heard us Nyann-ing loudly in the middle of Daiso, Cindy H probably rolled her eye sockets sore HAHA ) am looking forward to more!!!

(but never going back to that meeting spot, beautiful ambience, but the icecream tasted dodgy, i highlighted it to our server and we got our drinks exchanged, but the food was a tad overpriced for the quality and portions too. too bad, the lighting was pretty nice, just that i take crappy photos hehehe)

am also in the midst of moving my blog back to blogspot's server since blogger is removing ftp publishing from 1st may 2010....i hope none of my posts/pics go missing :(

Thursday, March 4, 2010

i got myself a new workspace!!! cousin very helpfully assisted me in transporting the table home in her awesome car (the back seats flip down!!!) and then bf came over to help fix it up....i moved the oven into the room, YAY!!!! am still sorting out my boxes and boxes of materials and tools....so far i'm looooooooooooving it! will take pics once i'm done sorting ^ ^

closeup of the celery sticks. details were painted on (the green dots, can you see them?) this was a fun and challenging commission, since i wanted the bread slices to be more realistic, i had to bake ADC and as always, it's a nerve-wracking experience since you never know if the process would work. especially since i scaled it up to 1:4.

but i think overall it did :)

deja vu? haha! these donuts seem to be very popular! here we have 4 more in 1:3 scale, i do so enjoy making these...however.......

that feathered donut refused to co-operate :( i had to wipe off the liquid polymer clay at least 3 times before i got it right. grrrrrrrrrr

ispahans in 1:3....approx 1.7cm wide and tall. polymer clay. finally completed these too, i think i promised to make these before CNY XD XD XD

what else? well i got a pleasant surprise last night! over on my deviantArt account, i logged in to see that i had 147 activity messages and comments. on any typical day, i'd be lucky to get maybe 2-3 messages. 147!?!?!? LOL as i suspected, one of my pictures made it to the Daily Deviation section...i'm not very familiar with the whole deal since i use dA somewhat like a photo storage account/portfolio....and the messages and comments came in all through the night, i must have had almost 400 messages. i went to bed, and woke up to 500++ more messages! and a few questions regarding commissions..

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. - Rainer Maria Rilke

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Google retired friend connect on Mar 1st 2012 :(
http://support.google.com/friendconnect/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2440229
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T-T